The Very Scary Almanac by Eric Elfman

How can you not pick up this book?  I couldn't resist!  People have feared the ideas of monsters, demons, witches, curses, and ghosts for billions of years.  This book (Almanac) was created to explain why ancient peoples invented these creatures as a way to deal with fears that they didn't understand in the first place. 

This book explains where The Blob came from (1958 film) and Frankenstein's (written in 1818) existance.  Ghouls can now be explained knowing that they came from the people of western Europe thinking that ghouls ate corpes.  Yuck!

Now Godzilla, Vampires, The Mummy, Zombies, Werewolves, are defined and explained. 

The scariest books ever written are analyzed and top "grosser" movies are rated to include how much they made at the box office!

I would think that this book is a young boy's best seller, but interesting (even to me) for everyone. 

Eric Elfman, the author, is an American writer who has always been interested in the supernatural, sci-fi, and paranormal events.  Researching this author I found one thing to be true, he enjoys scary things too!  Reviews were good in that each said they this book was enjoyable and became a fascinating reference book.

The illustrator, Will Suckow, did a wonderful job capturing the mood of this book!  His letters appeared to be written in blood (using paint and pen and ink) his black and white cross-sketching provided just the essence of chilly visualization to put the reader in the frame of mind to read the facts by Eric Elfman.